Selection of habitat by the jaguar, Panthera onca (Carnivora: Felidae), in the upper Paraná River, Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT. We used data from VHF and GPS radio-tagged jaguars, Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) to quantify jaguar habitat selection and how adult individuals in the Upper Paraná River region selected among the available habitat types. We followed the framework in which animals make decisions about resource use at hierarchical stages, namely selection of home range within a study area (second-order selection) and selection of patches within a home range (third-order selection). We quantified habitat preferences at two orders of selection with respect to habitat types and to test the null hypothesis that habitat utilization by jaguars was random at both study sites. Using compositional analysis, we assessed habitat selection by jaguars at second-and third-orders of selection. Jaguars consistently preferred dense marshes and primary forests, and avoided human-dominated areas such as intensively managed open pastures. Although the avoidance of disturbed and developed habitat types by jaguars is not surprising, this is the first study to document it. If small protected areas, such as the ones already existing in the Upper Paraná region, are to sustain jaguar populations they, must include and protect as many primary forests and marshlands as possible, so that jaguars can disperse, hunt wild prey and take care of their cubs without being disturbed. What is urgently needed in these jaguarprotected areas is the creation of larger protected areas that can sustain jaguars in their favored habitat.

Range-wide factors shaping space use and movements by the Neotropic’s flagship predator: the jaguar

“…Additionally, jaguar movement within home ranges (speed, autocorrelation timescale, home range crossing time) was independent of home range size and instead related to a different suite of factors which did not include anthropogenic covariates. This indicates that decisions about movement at the relatively short sampling scale of our data (generally 1hours) were most dependent upon environmental factors and that jaguars adjust their behavior to account for anthropogenic factors (14,18,19).…”

“…The negative relationship of speed with percent forest cover and mean annual precipitation suggests that forest availability, and potentially forest structure from increased precipitation, as well as a greater availability of water, results in more homogenous, high quality habitat which consequently does not force jaguars to avoid sub-optimal habitats (14,18). Since daily speed was negatively related with forest cover, a positive relationship in home range crossing time with percent forest cover is logical, as it would be expected that when individuals move slower, they take a longer time to cross their home ranges.…”

“…The distribution of the jaguar is associated with both environmental and anthropic factors (10), and while the drivers of home range size and resource selection have been confined to individual ecoregions (11)(12)(13), or across ecoregions (14)(15)(16)(17), demonstrating relationships with environmental and anthropogenic factors (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) and sex (15,16,19), there have been no rangewide comparative studies of jaguar space use. Since home range size is critical in determining density and ultimately abundance (20), the conspicuous lack of range-wide analyses of jaguar space use is of concern as conservation initiatives for the jaguar are range-wide in scope, involving 18 range countries.…”

Distribution and hotspots of the feeding areas of jaguars on sea turtles at a national park in Costa Rica

“…Several studies have recorded that the jaguar tends to avoid human-dominated areas (Cullen et al, 2013). Therefore, it is expected that the core areas of jaguar activity and its feeding hotspots areas would be located away from infrastructure and human presence (Arroyo-Arce and Salom-Pérez, 2015).…”

New record of the Jaguar, Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) (Felidae), from a mosaic of Atlantic Forest in the Paraná state, Brazil

“…In the study area, there several potential prey species for the Jaguar (Garla et al 2001;Cullen Jr et al 2013). Collared Peccary (Pecari tajacu), rosettes are larger, fewer, and often having one or more black dots inside (Kitchener 1991;Sunquist & Sunquist 2002).…”